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posted by LaminatorX on Wednesday September 10 2014, @03:10AM   Printer-friendly
from the trust-us dept.

A few days ago we had a submission here on SN about the FBI's claim on how it located the Silk Road's servers. Some researchers have now opined that the FBI's claim may not be accurate and suggested that they may have achieved their means in less that legal ways. One suggestion includes exploiting known bugs to discover the server's IP address.

If this is true, it would mean the FBI may have participated in potentially unlawful actions to help them close the case.

Related Stories

FBI Finally Says How it ‘Legally’ Pinpointed Silk Road’s Server 22 comments

As the trial of alleged Silk Road drug market creator Ross Ulbricht approaches, the defense has highlighted the mystery of how law enforcement first located the main Silk Road server in an Icelandic data center, despite the computer being hidden by the formidable anonymity software Tor. Was the FBI tipped off to the server’s location by the NSA, who used a secret and possibly illegal Tor-cracking technique?

The answer, according to a new filing by the case’s prosecution, is far more mundane: The FBI claims to have found the server’s location without the NSA’s help, simply by fiddling with the Silk Road’s login page until it leaked its true location.

http://www.wired.com/2014/09/the-fbi-finally-says-how-it-legally-pinpointed-silk-roads-server/

Silk Road Prosecution 4th Amendment Rebuttal:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/238796613/Silk-Road-Prosecution-4th-Amendment-Rebuttall

FBI Explanation of Silk Road Vulnerability:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/238844570/FBI-Explanation-of-Silk-Road-vulnerability

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 10 2014, @03:31AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 10 2014, @03:31AM (#91565)

    The minute they started doing parallel construction they created doubt about their integrity.
    But the fact that they have not taken any significant steps to halt the use of parallel construction in the future is the nail in the coffin.
    We know they outright lie, they don't have any contrition about outright lying, so going forward everything they do is tainted.
    They've completed the transformation from a legitimate police force into just another gang with guns.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday September 10 2014, @03:35AM

      by sjames (2882) on Wednesday September 10 2014, @03:35AM (#91566) Journal

      They lost all credibility with me when one of their forensic techs testified that at the end of the day, they vote on any ambiguous results.

      This shows it's even worse than I thought, but they have been damaging their own credibility for a long time.

      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by davester666 on Wednesday September 10 2014, @07:55AM

        by davester666 (155) on Wednesday September 10 2014, @07:55AM (#91599)

        Sure, their credibility with regular people who read about this stuff is shot.

        Credibility with judges in court is still intact.

  • (Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday September 10 2014, @04:14AM

    by arslan (3462) on Wednesday September 10 2014, @04:14AM (#91570)

    IANAL but assuming, they indeed violated the law in terms of how they gathered information that led to the arrest, I would assume a proper functioning judiciary should/would dismiss this case?

    • (Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 10 2014, @04:35AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 10 2014, @04:35AM (#91573)

      Don't count on it. Seems like it takes a pissed off judge to ever hold the police accountable. If he's friendly he'll be willing to buy the flimsiest of excuses - the "good faith" exception to the exclusionary rule [wikipedia.org] is flexible enough to fit any even the biggest load of bullshit through if the judge is willing to believe that the cops thought they were obeying the law.

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by SlimmPickens on Wednesday September 10 2014, @05:13AM

        by SlimmPickens (1056) on Wednesday September 10 2014, @05:13AM (#91578)

        Still, it's high profile and everyone is pissed at NSA right now. Not that it would mean much.

        I've been taking this opportunity to go over again some of the numbers associated with US intelligence. $52 billion per year is more than some estimates of the the Iraq war. Aubrey de Grey says he could solve ageing with $100 Billion over ten years. The mind boggles.

        • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday September 10 2014, @09:03AM

          by wonkey_monkey (279) on Wednesday September 10 2014, @09:03AM (#91606) Homepage

          Aubrey de Grey says he could solve ageing with $100 Billion over ten years.

          I'd say that too if I thought people would believe me and give me $100 billion.

          --
          systemd is Roko's Basilisk
      • (Score: 2) by MrGuy on Wednesday September 10 2014, @11:46AM

        by MrGuy (1007) on Wednesday September 10 2014, @11:46AM (#91628)

        "Good Faith" exceptions generally apply when something technically illegal happens when there's a reasonable expectation by the person who takes the illegal action that the actions were legal. US vs. Leon is a case where the warrant should not have been issued, but the police didn't know that - as far as they knew, they had a valid warrant (they had a piece of paper signed by a judge), and executed what they thought was a valid search. The key to good faith is that, while there's a legal defect in the overall chain of events, people take actions on a reasonable belief that they are legally authorized.

        There's no "good faith" exception for knowingly acting illegally but thinking the ends justify the means. There's also no "good faith" exception for knowingly lying to a court because you're trying to protect your methods of thwarting evil doers (if there was such an exception, we wouldn't need the FISA court). This is how separation of powers works, and the judiciary does tend to take a dim view of the position that the executive branch can willfully mislead the judiciary branch. They CAN claim certain facts or evidence are classified, and leave it up to the court what they're allowed to introduce, but they didn't claim that here.

        Will a court hold the FBI in contempt for willfully lying? Doubtful. Will the Justice department prosecute the FBI for perjury? Good luck. Will a court throw out evidence gathered illegally that the FBI lies about? Quite possibly.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 10 2014, @09:01PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 10 2014, @09:01PM (#91839)

          > There's no "good faith" exception for knowingly acting illegally but thinking the ends justify the means.

          It is all semantics. If the police can convince the judge that they did not know what they were doing was illegal, then bingo-bango good faith. It comes down to how willing the judge is to believe the bullshit.

        • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 10 2014, @09:37PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 10 2014, @09:37PM (#91848)

          There's no "good faith" exception for knowingly acting illegally but thinking the ends justify the means.

          Except in drug cases. Cops can say, "I smelled what smelled like the chemicals used to manufacture methampetamine," and get away with raiding any house without a warrant. This happens far too often, and even when literally nothing illegal is found, the corrupt pigs still haven't ever been punished in any way, because they "acted in good faith."

    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday September 10 2014, @02:18PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Wednesday September 10 2014, @02:18PM (#91682)

      I'm not aware of which laws they may have broken either. Breaking and entering, or whatever the computer equivalent is? "Unlawful system access?"

      Keep in mind, too, that this is the FBI, not the NSA. The FBI *does* have jurisdiction inside the U.S...but were the SR servers located abroad? (Not that They seem to particularly care about that these days.) Then there's also the whole "have the right organization collect the data and then pass it to somebody else who doesn't have jurisdiction" thing.

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
      • (Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday September 10 2014, @10:13PM

        by arslan (3462) on Wednesday September 10 2014, @10:13PM (#91857)

        Like I said, IANAL, but I would think the FBI aren't allowed to hack into sites (in this case exploiting a login bug) without a warrant or some of of due process? If they did have a warrant and it is all legal, why would they lie, surely the judge that issued the warrant would know they were lying as well... why bother?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12 2014, @12:04AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12 2014, @12:04AM (#92170)

          They will argue that they did not think that they did falls under an arbitrarily narrow definition of hacking (even if they argue for a much broader definition in other cases where they are charging someone with hacking). As for why hide it? Since it wasn't illegal as far as the "knew" then the need to disclose was less important than the need to preserve the technique for future investigations. Everything they did was in good faith, all it takes is a willful suspension of disbelief on the part of a friendly judge.

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 10 2014, @07:43AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 10 2014, @07:43AM (#91597)

    The law is for little people, like you and me.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by mendax on Wednesday September 10 2014, @10:24AM

    by mendax (2840) on Wednesday September 10 2014, @10:24AM (#91614)

    Well, "assholes" may be to strong a word, but "biased" is the right word. It is well-known in the legal community that most judges are very skeptical of claims of illegal and unconstitutional behavior by the government or government officials. They generally will approach these kinds of cases by assuming that the government is acting lawfully and constitutionally. Thus, the plaintiff has to meet a very high standard to overcome this bias. And even when the government does break that law or violate the constitution, most of the time they get away with it [nytimes.com].

    --
    It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Wednesday September 10 2014, @03:30PM

      by hemocyanin (186) on Wednesday September 10 2014, @03:30PM (#91720) Journal

      Everyone should read that article. It basically points out that due to recent Supreme Court opinions, if you are murdered by a cop while on duty, your estate/family will get nothing. The city is effectively immune from civil suit and so is the cop. It's appalling. And the example of the prosecutor who put a guy on death row, while he hid blood evidence proving that the defendant wasn't even of the same blood type, and who faced no consequences -- I can think of very few people who deserve to die from the most slow acting and painful forms of cancer around than that fuckwad.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 10 2014, @02:04PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 10 2014, @02:04PM (#91677)

    blurb. wow and soylent sucks when accessing thru tor and the exit node changes.
    nevermind, if the server hosting can only be accessed via ssh and there is no physical keyboard then this way of exposure is definitly possible.